Sunday, June 23, 2002

al-Jazeera, apparent media outlet for al Qaeda, produced yet another piece of journalistic voodoo, this one from Sulaiman bu Ghaith, who stated al Qaeda was responsible for a deadly suicide attack at a Tunisian synagogue in April and warned of fresh attacks against the United States in "months."

In an undated broadcast, Bu Ghaith said 98 percent of al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Zawahri, had survived the Afghanistan campaign and were "going about their work."

It was the first direct claim of al Qaeda involvement in the blast near El Ghriba synagogue on the resort island of Djerba in April which killed 21 people, including 14 Germans. German government ministers had earlier said there was evidence linking the blast to the militant network.

"This operation was carried out by al Qaeda network. A youth could not see his brothers in Palestine butchered and murdered...(while) he saw Jews cavorting in Djerba," Sulaiman bu Ghaith said in the undated recording broadcast by al-Jazeera.

"So this spirit of jihad surged and he (the al Qaeda member) carried out this successful operation, may God accept it," said bu Ghaith, who emerged as an al Qaeda spokesman after the September 11 attacks.

Funny, terrorist apologists keep telling me jihad is an internal struggle. Are they so consumed by this internal struggle they simply must blow themselves, and a lot of Jews, to smithereens, or is that definition of jihad just the one they give to liberals in the west?